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Future StepsBy Gary Bolles
Technology: Corporate Portals
In the real world, a portal is a door. A door by itself doesn't provide much value, nor do we call it "door technology": It's what the door provides access to that matters.
Though the definition is impreciseand what emerging software technology isn't?the phrase "corporate portal" sounds like it should let employees get their hands on everything they need from their companies. But the first few generations of portals have delivered only disconnected parts of that misty vision. As a result, the traditional problem of portalsyou built it, but they didn't comeis still an issue for many companies. Remember "stickiness"? It's back, but now it's in your own backyard.
You can blame the technology, but the fact is many companies never built what their employees really needed in the first place. Portals should streamline communications between management and employees, help employees collaborate more easily, and give employees personalized access to the information and applications they need to do their work well. And portals should do it all in a cost-effective manner that lets companies save money by consolidating both servers and applications.
But early portals were really just an assemblage of Web pageslittle more than glorified corporate newsletters, typically labeled "intranets"delivered through a plethora of individual servers that popped up all over the corporation. IBM claims that at one point it had 8,000 individual intranets. That's a lot of overhead. Analysts and users maintain that the first generation of portals didn't really provide much business value for users or management. That's because a portal is really more a management approach than an explicit set of technologies or services. If your approach is that a portal should be designed by management to do little more than communicate uninteresting information to disinterested employees, it won't work.
For a portal to provide value to employees, it has to be more: more interactive, more adaptable, and more useful, giving employees more and more of the tools they need to do their work. But that depends on exactly what services the portal provides.
Analysts say that the ability for both management and employees to manage content is a must, because employees need access to communications and critical information from management and vice versa, and they need other sources of information both inside and outside the company. Personalization is key, so employees can tailor information and services to their own needs. And integration with ERP and other applications is essential: The portal might, say, streamline a customer-support process by linking directly to the appropriate pages in a series of Web-enabled enterprise applications, such as checking an accounts-receivable ERP application, an e-business server database and a trouble-ticket database. But tight integration on the back end is also critical: Who wants to have to log in repeatedly, or re-enter a customer's information over and over again? It's like calling your bank and being asked to provide your name and account number every time you speak to someone new.
Beyond these basics, says Heidi Collins, author of Corporate Portals, full-function portals add a variety of services such as identity management, security, collaboration services and administration tools that allow portal support staff to perform tasks such as monitoring portal usage. Every portal vendor, of course, spins the list of offerings to match what they can provide. The goal? "It's to move beyond superficial user-interface integration, and go behind the scenes to make sure the elements on that screen are linked in logical and useful ways in the background," says Dwight Davis, vice president and practice director at Summit Strategies Inc., a Boston-based research firm.
Ask Your Employees:
What information from corporate management do you regularly need to do your job better?
Ask the Business Units:
What Web-based applications are your people using, and could they use them more effectively if they were better integrated?
Ask Your IT Staff:
Given the answers to the above questions, do we even need a portal?
Business Value
Business Value
Determining the exact business value of a portal can be devilishly hard. But don't let that stop you from trying.
Portals should make employees more effective while saving the company money. But because portal initiatives can span so many different purposesfrom simple internal communications to complex integrated business processesfor such a large number of workers, it's often pretty tough to determine specific business goals.
That may make it seem like portals stand on shaky ground, ready to be shot down or scaled back the moment IT budgets come under fire. But analysts and users say it's precisely because portals can contribute to productivity that they are worth pushing forward.
For example, streamlining corporate communications alone can mean savings for companies dependent on paper processes. Eddie Bauer's retail planning and communications manager, James Greathouse, says the retailer had 17 different ways of getting corporate information to employeese-mail, fax, voice mail, etc.with each business unit using whatever route it wanted, whenever it wanted. Employees had to sift through all the options to find a specific message, such as instructions on how to keep inventories up to date. Bauer provided a very basic portal to retail store managers and got corporate departments to agree on what kinds of information should be funneled through which media. The result: significantly increased employee effectiveness and measurable improvements in key measures like "shrinkage"the difference between corporate and store inventory statements.
IT execs need to encourage business units to define precisely the value they're striving for. "I've seen portals where the goal is to save everybody 30 minutes in a day," says Dr. William Ives, knowledge management practice leader at Accenture. "Well, that's pretty fuzzy. What are they going to do with that extra time, read magazines?"
It's essential to involve business users, frequently from every unit, in the decision-making process. Consider creating cross-disciplinary teams to establish goals for a new portal. Align and streamline, then set clear goals. But don't keep those goals to yourselves: Make sure users understand them so they can hold the company's feet to the fire if that value isn't delivered.
What kinds of goals? Author Collins separates portal objectives into three categories: performance-based objectives, or basic usage issues such as assessing the rate at which employees come to the portal; process management objectives, such as streamlining and integrating business processes like reducing the number of steps required to process a purchase order; and information management objectives, which involves the ability of employees to get the knowledge they need to be effective.
Ask Your Business Constituents:
Who needs to reach employees through the portal, and what do they want to accomplish?
Tell Your CFO:
We can justify components of our portal initiatives, but we may not be able to make all the numbers add up.
Tell Your IT Employees:
We can be the glue that holds these initiatives together, or we can be shut out if we're not helping everyone communicate better.
Today, implementation depends on what you've already done. Tomorrow, the buzzword will be architecture.
No portals in place? Your biggest decision is whether to build or buy. Many users are still implementing basic portals by developing their own applications. But there's a lot of rapidly maturing off-the-shelf software out there, and vendors are partnering up quickly to fill in the blanks in their offerings. "The issue at this stage is not determining what hammer to buy; it's where to put the nail," says Simon Hayward, a research director at Gartner Inc.
Companies with portals already in place have a different problem. Many companies have implemented portal software from numerous vendors, often away from IT's watchful eye. To avoid the risk of Balkanization, one important concept of the coming generation of portals is "federation"the idea that services and processes can be coordinated across the enterprise. That's a tall order, especially for large companies. But there's also a clear business reason: Letting separate business unitsand sometimes even small workgroupsmake their own technology decisions creates substantial costs. French Caldwell, a research director at Gartner, says one client migrated from 24 different portal applications to one, saving $8 million in the first year alone.
If you can justify the cost of rolling out a portal based on its general value to the organization, more power to you. That's the process Whirlpool followed, says Gil Urban, lead director for global enterprise management systems. The company provided a set of generic information services and self-service applications to employees, serving as the foundation for specific workgroup applications in the future.
Not everyone can make the financial case for such a broad initiative, however, so most people will have to focus more tightly on smaller wins. "It's much better to start small at the department level, find the low-hanging fruit of those who can most benefit from portals, and then grow it to a global function," says Davis of Summit Strategies.
But none of this work should occur without an overarching portal architecture for the enterprise. Even small portal initiatives need to be connected to a larger vision of how the organization intends to manage centralized user services, or they'll run the risk of creating the same kind of runaway implementations that early adopters are now saddled with.
Ask Your Staff:
Do we really know how many intranets and portals we have?
Tell Your Business Constituents:
Let's sit down and get a clear picture of what, where, and how communication needs to happen with employees.
Ask Your IT Architects:
How can we design a portal that we can efficiently expand in the future?
Future Steps
Future Steps
The next-generation portal won't deserve the name "portal," because it will provide much more than portals do now.
Portals are going through a rapid evolution toward a time when their promise of becoming doorways to a broad range of corporate services will come true. In fact, according to Gartner Inc., we're already seeing the third wave.
That phase apparently has two major characteristics. The first is that the major chores of integration are moving toward the back end, requiring much more coordination between applications, sources of data and the portal software itself. The second is that portals will be handling more and more business processesfrom updating benefits to collaborating on wide-ranging customer-focused initiatives.
Those services can be as simple as a set of Web pages that provide deep links to, say, a financials ERP system with a wizard-like interface that walks users through screens they'd only see once or twice a year, such as performance reviews. Or they could be as complex as an end-to-end set of processes connected to dozens of applications, such as a product management sequence that links everything from product development to marketing campaign automation. And it's likely that much of the knitting together of applications and data will be performed by technologies like Web services.
What's that next-generation platform called? That depends on whom you listen to. Gartner calls it a "smart enterprise suite." Accenture calls it a "workspace portal." IBM's term: "e-workplace" or "dynamic workplace." And a few portal software startups, including Vienna, Va.-based Handysoft Corp., call it a "process portal." But by any other name, the portal of the near future will look a lot more like the kind of integrated systems that developers of application suites have been trying to provide. And if the promise of such systems is realized, they should allow companies to better leverage their unique processes for business advantage. "Whether it's the way we brew our beer or the way we make our pizzas, there's something that's a competitive differentiator for us in the way we do those things," says Daryn Walters, vice president of worldwide marketing and strategy for Handysoft. And much of the same work that's being done to integrate data and applications for employees can help provide value to partners and customers.
"Our belief is that the workplace is moving online," says Pam Stanford, director of dynamic workplaces for IBM's software group, "and if the organization doesn't have a strategy and a plan, they're going to lose some of their competitive advantage."
Ask Your IT Architects:
How can these kinds of integrated services link to our future IT architecture?
Tell Your Business Users:
We can't offer these kinds of capabilities today, but you should start helping us define what those services should look like tomorrow.
Tell Your CFO:
I may be coming back your way to finance even fancier portals in the next few years.
Strategic Profile
: Ameriking">
Strategic Profile: Ameriking
Ameriking is one of the largest Burger King franchisees in the U.S., with 11,000 employees and $320 million in revenues in 2001. But the company was incurring substantial costs with its manual processes for disseminating sales and other information to its more than 350 restaurants in 12 states.
CIO: Hernando Manrique
Problem: Mission-critical information, such as transmitting profit-and-loss statements, was distributed manuallywhich would have cost about $48,500 in 2001 aloneand business calendars for activities like training schedules had to be synchronized by hand for the company's 11 regions.
Goal: Coordinate communications between corporate and the field, and speed delivery of critical information.
Strategy: Implement a companywide portal from Plumtree Software Inc. that could provide a platform for current and future communication and collaboration between restaurants.
Challenges: Manrique says it was important to get managers at both business units and restaurants on board, cementing their buy-in from the beginning. "One of the most difficult things in the portal business is to get the users to use the portal, so the more you automate critical processes, the more you're going to be able to get people to access the portal."
ROI: Manrique is counting on a conservative estimate of 255 percent ROI over three years, based on reduced costs of information delivery and other information delivery processes, and without any calculations for "soft" costs such as employee productivity.
Assessment: The portal, which was rolled out in 2001, has already generated substantial savings. "To me," says Manrique, "a portal is one of the most wonderful tools on the market today."


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Kansas case could affect Alabama voter registration
A court ruling in Kansas could lead to Alabama enforcing part of its immigration law that has never been used.
The 2011 law required people registering to vote in Alabama for the first time to present evidence of citizenship. Such proof could include a birth certificate, passport, driver's license or a non-driver ID card issued by Alabama or another state that requires proof of residency to issue the license.
Alabama's chief election official, Republican Secretary of State Jim Bennett, said the requirement was not put into effect because of litigation over similar requirements in Kansas and Arizona.
A federal judge in Wichita, Kan., ruled last week that federal officials must help Kansas and Arizona enforce laws requiring new voters to document their U.S. citizenship. District Judge Eric Melgren ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to immediately modify a national voter registration form to add special instructions for Arizona and Kansas residents about their states' proof-of-citizenship requirements.
One of the authors of Alabama's immigration law, Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, said he was glad to see the decision.
"It's a good ruling. We must ensure citizens are the only ones who votes if we are to have honest elections," Beason said.
Bennett said he had been cautiously optimistic that Kansas and Arizona would prevail. He said no decision has been made yet about what to do in Alabama, and that will depend, in part, on whether the Kansas ruling is appealed.
"It would seem that Alabama would have the same strong footing regarding this issue in our state," Bennett said.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who consulted with Alabama legislators on the state's 2011 immigration law, said last week he believes the ruling "has paved the way for all states to enact proof-of-citizenship requirements."
One of the attorneys who successfully challenged parts of Alabama's immigration law, Sam Brooke of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, said the proof-of-citizenship part was not challenged because the state wasn't trying to enforce it. He said the wise approach would be for the state to continue to keep that portion of the immigration law on hold while an anticipated appeal is pursued in the Kansas and Arizona case.
If Alabama does proceed, a new suit could be file challenging the law as a hindrance to voting, he said.
Until Alabama tries to enforce the proof-of-citizenship requirement, people can register to vote by giving their Alabama driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Alabama's next election is the primary election on June 3, which will feature contests ranging from governor to county offices.

subset: commoncrawl


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The television battle for 7pm has tightened - with Seven Sharp losing almost 200,000 viewers from its opening on Monday and heading towards audience numbers close to rival Campbell Live.
Despite the decline, Television New Zealand says its new-look show is the future of current affairs, and that it is too early to pay attention to ratings.
"We are giving viewers what they've told us they want to see. It simply takes time - nothing can be extrapolated from one week in," said TVNZ head of news and current affairs Ross Dagan.
"We are in this for the long haul. Talk to us in six months about what the ratings are and we will happily have that conversation."
Seven Sharp, a departure from the more straight current affairs format of its Close Up predecessor, was watched by 508,500 viewers on Monday night.
That number steadily fell during the week, with 310,300 tuning in on Thursday night, according to ratings figures supplied by NielsenTAM.
The number of people deserting the show from its lead-in, One News, jumped up to 52 per cent, Throng.co.nz reported yesterday.
Campbell Live on TV3 was watched by 265,000 on Thursday. Its ratings have been steady throughout the week.
TVNZ's new current affairs show has been put under a microscope by critics and social media since its much-anticipated debut on Monday.
Attempts to blend serious news items with satirical jokes, host "banter" and viewer interaction have been panned by those hoping for more serious content.
Mr Dagan said there was a core of media and viewers who had made up their minds about the show before seeing it.
"I don't think anyone thought that a few days on air would have them change their minds publicly ... fundamentally we are flattered with all the interest."
Each show would be examined and changes made if deemed necessary, Mr Dagan said.
"We have taken the decision to provide a different future for current affairs, and we think we are absolutely on the right track."
The drop in Seven Sharp ratings has not translated into a boost for Campbell Live, with viewership of the TV3 show remaining relatively steady.
In the 25-54 age group - the target market for TV One and TV3 - Campbell Live was watched by 78,600 people on Thursday night, down from 87,400 viewers on Monday.
Seven Sharp rated 64,400 viewers in the age group, down from 131,300 on Monday night.
Last year Close Up, hosted by Mark Sainsbury, averaged 456,000 viewers a night.


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10 year hydrostatic testing of gas extinguishing cylinders
Tag: Nitrogen
10 year hydrostatic testing of gas extinguishing cylinders
The FIA have updated their guidance document on the need for 10 year hydrostatic testing of gas extinguishing cylinders. The new guidance is available from Senseco Systems & is now much shorter and clearer, the requirements haven't changed and it clearly states that;
All fixed extinguishing agent containers (eg HFC-227ea (FM-200), FK 5-1-12 (Novec 1230), HFC-23 (FE-13), HFC-125 (FE-25), IG 541 (INERGEN), IG 01(Argon), IG 55 (ARGONITE), IG100 (Nitrogen) and CO2 etc) must be inspected, re-tested and certified accordingly prior to the 10th anniversary of their manufacture or most recent test.
Note 1: Containers found to be in service beyond the 10th anniversary of their manufacture or most recent test should be removed from service.
Therefore if you have any cylinders nearing (or beyond) the 10 year date from their stamp we must advise you as our client of this requirement and request the full cylinder information needs to be passed to the Senseco Systems mechanical team to quote to replace the cylinders.
If you would like some free guidance on this requirement please contact us at [email protected]
Senseco Systems are also proud to be one of the very few fire companies to be certified to the BAFE SP203 Part 3 Gas Suppression Standard which certifies us (and awarded us with three BSI Kitemark's) to work on, design, install, maintain and support gas suppression systems.
Unlike the hundreds of our competitors who only possess the Part 1 Fire Alarm approval.
If you want to find out if your compliant on your cylinders and also on your maintenance or projects, then contact a competent third party certified suppression company such as Senseco Systems on [email protected]
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However, she also looks at the way our sexual orientation is created through absorption of social norms - we do not consciously create our heterosexuality as much as we inherit it. True, much of it seems to be biological, which it even more striking that people can override their "indoctrination" to identify for themselves how their sexual preferences are enacted.
This sounds like a very good book.
How much of sexual orientation is what we've been taught to call ourselves?
You quondam liberal-artists out there—veterans of lit-crit and queer theory, men and womyn formerly fluent in what Said said and all that Lacan cant—may yet remember that we live our lives according to a system of social constructs. The idea of race did not exist until colonialism required it. The notion of the self was thoroughly obscure until the Enlightenment dawned. The teenager didn't exist until the Industrial Revolution told him to get off its lawn.
Now from Hanne Blank comes a chewy piece of scholarship—Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality (Beacon)—that puts a spin on the hip-hop catchphrase "no homo," explaining that there was no hetero until social science and pseudo-science invented a need in the middle of the 19th century. Anyone who's done time at a British public school or a progressive women's college can tell you that matters of sexual orientation are not strictly either/or. But this book twirls that "/" with panache, spinning a generous handful of yarns about the stories we tell ourselves about sex, love, and identity.
Straight covers an impressive bit of social-historical ground despite being, true to its subtitle, a compact production. It runs 264 pages, including index and footnotes. There are no illustrations, lamentably, so let's start with the author bio. Hanne Blank is "an independent scholar," earlier the author of Virgin: The Untouched History, and her "work has been featured everywhere from Out to Penthouse"—a gamut that would seem to exclude both Oui and Playgirl. She is, on the evidence, a rigorous thinker. Tracing the history of the word heterosexual and homosexual—coined, in 1868, by a pamphleteer opposed to the laws against "unnatural fornication" being written into the Prussian penal code—she is calm and clear. Tracing the way those coinages and the ideas animating them radiated into general discourse—by way of Kraft-Ebbing and Kinsey and Freud—she is deft and nimble. Shuttling back and forth through time to chat about related issues—including matrimony and sodomy, the economics of nonsexual bed-sharing and the history of romantic love—she exhibits the handsome confidence of a popular historian. And dragging herself into it, she uses a light touch to make us question the pronoun she.
In the acknowledgements, Blank thanks her partner for "being such such a good sport about being made into a framing device for a history book." The author is a woman who claims "no deep personal attachment to labeling myself in terms of sexual orientation," and her better half is, in terms of sexual organs, a man. But does the manhood make the man? He is diagnosed with Klinefelter Syndrome, "one of the most common sex-chromosome anomalies," meaning that his DNA reads XXY. His looks are androgynous, and his testicles are no help to the perpetuation of the species, but everything's peachy … until you start wondering whether this couple's love would traditionally be allowed to speak its name.
It would be orthodox to say that he is a man and that their relationship is heterosexual, but Blank is most compelling when talking about doxa. One of her few resorts to jargon, it's a necessary one. "When anthropologists talk about this 'stuff everyone knows,' " she writes, "they use the term doxa. Doxa comes from the Greek for 'common knowledge,' and that's a pretty good description of what it is: the understanding we absorb from our native culture that we use to make sense of the world. … We all create it, together, mostly unintentionally." The doxa of straightness was created by tribal leaders and trial lawyers, by old wives and Viennese witch doctors, and it is being created by me as I write and you as you read. Blank has some questions for us, and they originated, it seems, with an intimate inquiry she confronts at the health clinic when wondering which box to tick, "gay," "lesbian," "bisexual," "transgender," or "heterosexual."
The book's impetus may be personal but its passions are strictly philosophical. One mission of Straight is to argue with people identified, with a Cornel West flourish, as "our right-wing brothers and sisters"—some of whom, mostly scarily those running for president, assert that heterosexuality is all about procreation. But Black's argument isn't against them. Rather, it's an engagement with the whole system of thought that allows and encourages right and left wings to take flight.
If I fail to convey the book's central point, that is because the book has no center. It's possible that Blank isn't the tenure-track type because her prose style is too good for too many of the departments that go in for her kind of thing—too free of weedy rhetoric to take root in the groves of academe. But also, Blank, though eminently reasonable, is not committed to sustained linear reasoning. The book hops among a useful riddle about "marked categories" (if we say that prude is the opposite of slut, then what are we saying about the person who is neither?), some thoughts on a court case involving the jazz pianist Billy Tipton (a woman who passed as a man, which was news to his widow), and a consideration of the metaphorical "wide stance" of Larry Craig ("he straddled the border of what was permissible for a man in a position of power"). Elsewhere, there are mini-essays on the cultural shift from courting to dating, the Defense of Marriage Act, the advent of no-fault divorce. … It's all smart, and it's all over the place.
And there are wrinkles in the text that would have benefited from the steam-ironing of peer review. Blank, for instance, spends time fruitfully considering degeneration—a perversion of Darwin that lay behind some lethal pseudo-science—but she neglects to mention the famous Max Nordau book of that title. But am I succumbing to the tyranny of doxa in lodging such complaints? Isn't there something perfect in the fact that Straight zigzags in connecting its dots?


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Friday 25 January
|Arabitragus (1)
Although the Arabian tahr is relatively small, its strength and agility should not be underestimated (2) (3). The species has a stocky build and solid, compact horns in both sexes, although males are generally larger in size and possess longer, more robust horns (3). The coat consists of long, shaggy, reddish-brown hair, with a dark stripe down the back (4). Males sport impressive manes that extend right down the back and grow longer with age, as well as reddish tinted leg tassels. Older males also grow a rather grand beard and the black muzzle and eye stripes become darker (3). Like ibex species, the Arabian tahr has developed rubbery hooves that provide grip and traction on the steep rocky slopes and cliffs of its mountainous habitat (2) (3).
The Arabian tahr is either solitary or found in small groups of a female and a kid or a male and female with a kid (2). In contrast to most members of the Bovidae family, male Arabian tahr demonstrate territorial behaviour, involving scratching of the soil with their hooves and marking it with dung or urine, 'horning' vegetation, and rubbing glandular secretions from the chest onto rocks as a form of scent-marking (2) (3). Rather than forming large seasonal rutting herds, reproduction appears to occur opportunistically in small, dispersed family units (6). There are reports of births occurring almost throughout the year, and gestation lasts from 140 to 145 days (2).
The Arabian tahr is primarily a browser that feeds on leaves, fruit and seeds of a range of trees, shrubs and grasses. These tahr are also highly dependent upon a regular supply of water, having to drink every two to three days during hot summers, and will travel to new areas outside their normal ranges when water sources dry up (6).
Endemic to the Hajar Mountains of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Sultanate of Oman (5).
The Arabian tahr is typically found at high elevations (1,000 to 1,800 metres) on steep, north facing slopes where rainfall is relatively high, and vegetation fairly diverse (1) (6).
Classified as Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List (1).
The Arabian tahr is currently extremely endangered as a result of intense grazing competition from livestock, illegal hunting and habitat degradation through human development (5). Unfortunately, the species' dependence upon visiting waterholes leaves it vulnerable to ambush by poachers (3). Human migrations to urban areas have increased in Oman in recent years, resulting in domestic goats being left to become feral, which now forage in areas that were once the realm of the tahr. Additionally, several roads and buildings have been constructed near and within the tahr's range, which are new potential sources of disturbance, pollution and habitat fragmentation. In particular, plans for mineral extraction in southern parts of the range could result in significant habitat loss (6). Tahr populations in UAE appear to be especially localised and possibly isolated. The concern is that isolation of sub-populations will lead to the diminished genetic variation associated with inbreeding, which in turn results in increased susceptibility to disease and decreased fertility, spelling disaster for the Arabian tahr in UAE (3).
In 1973, efforts were initiated to protect the Arabian tahr and, in 1975, active protection was granted over a wide range of the eastern Hajar Mountains of Oman, with local men recruited as rangers under the Office of the Advisor for Conservation of the Environment (6). Unfortunately, this area still awaits to be awarded official status by a Royal Decree with an approved, funded and implemented management plan (6) (7). However, in 2009, Wadi Wurayah Fujairah, home to the Arbaian tahr and other rare and endangered species, was officially declared as the United Arab Emirates' first protected mountain area (8).
In 1980, a captive breeding population was also established at the Omani Mammal Breeding Centre as a means of bolstering numbers by reintroducing captive-bred individuals back into the wild (6). There are now a total of three institutions involved in captive breeding of this species, one in Oman, and two in the United Arab Emirates (9). Sadly, many people still seem to be unaware of the grave situation the Arabian tahr is in, so other conservation initiatives have focussed on publicity and educational campaigns to raise the species' profile (7). Indeed, raising awareness and concern for the plight of this species, the region's only large, endemic mammal, will be crucial in obtaining cooperation in protecting it (6).
For more information on the Arabian tahr see:
Authenticated (05/06/2006) by the Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife.
Image credit
© Dr Andrew Spalton
Dr Andrew Spalton
Diwan of Royal Court
PO Box 246
Muscat 113
Sultanate of Oman
Tel: +968 24693536
Fax: +968 24693883
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Actress Toni Trucks has been keeping a log of her auditions since 2003. She can tell you everything she ever wore, who she auditioned for and what their response was. Inspired by her college professor, Trucks has been chronicling how many jobs she's booked, how many times she's been called back and how many times she's been rejected for almost 15 years. In a career filled with many rejections and many different outfits, Trucks finally landed her dream role on CBS's hit military drama "SEAL Team."
Starring alongside David Boreanaz and Jessica Parè, the Michigan native plays a no-nonsense Logistics Coordinator for the SEAL Team named Lisa Davis, who is only concerned with if a person can execute their job at the highest level.
Trucks chatted with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith about the biggest differences in the actress she was and is now, working with David Boreanaz and why she takes such pride in playing Lisa Davis.
DJ Sixsmith: What is the biggest difference between Toni Trucks from "Barbershop" and Toni Trucks on "SEAL Team?"
Toni Trucks: I was 100% green during "Barbershop." I had never done any television at all or work on camera outside of school. I was really learning on camera when I did "Barbershop," so that was interesting. I was really green, but I think that served me well too. I always had a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm, love for the work and I was just so excited to be on set. The similarity now is that I am very happy, excited and enthusiastic for the work with hopefully a bit more finesse in terms of execution.
DS: Why did you want to be in "SEAL Team" on CBS?
TT: "SEAL Team" appealed to me because of my character in particular Lisa Davis. I was seeing a woman in the military that was doing all the things that I wanted her to do. She is smart, strong, respected and beautiful and none of those things are mutually exclusive. She can be all things and that's what I wanted to see. I didn't want her to diminish her sexuality in any way because I felt like you can do all of those things. That script was providing me the opportunities to show all of the colors of this woman in a really exciting way. It was padded with such a high pedigree of writers, creators and directors and you are so safe as an actor when you are working with such high caliber people.
DS: You and your cast members underwent extensive preparation for the show and met with veterans who served in the military. What was the most eye opening part of that experience?
TT: I didn't personally have an active working knowledge of the military. I didn't have anyone in my immediate family that had served. There was a learning curve for me. I definitely was really affected and moved by the stories that I was ingesting each day from our tech advisors, who are Delta Force, Tier One Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. They're the best of the best. Hearing their stories really affected me and some days I would need to go home and cry it out because I was trying to ingest a lot of information at once and apply it really quickly. I had to get in the mind of a soldier where you are in such high stakes situations all the time and thrust back into a more normal reality and the emotional toll that can take. Secondly, the thing that really affected me equally was the fun that we had. A lot of times, the stories we were told were so intense and then something funny would happen. I wondered how they found humor and joy in those moments that could potentially scar you. You learn so much about people and their character when you figure out what makes them laugh. Laughter can come at unexpected times.
DS: Previously you mentioned some characteristics of Lisa Davis. What's it been like playing this role?
TT: When I was talking to women from the military, I was really interested in how women interact with each other. There's only two regular women on our show, myself and Jessica Parè. I wanted to know if I'm rooting for her because she's a woman, I know Toni Trucks would. In developing Davis, I love the notion that she's really worked based. It's really about the product. When she meets any person, it's all about are you good at your job, are you reliable and do you execute your job. If so, Davis respects you and then moves forward from there. That's the wiring of Lisa Davis. The proof is in the pudding. We are in such dangerous and high stakes situations and everyone needs to be functioning at the top of their game. My character is constantly asking "are you good at what you do," and if not, then she doesn't have a lot of time for you.
DS: David Boreanaz stars in this show as Jason Hayes. What's been the best part of working with him?
TT: David has been such a gift to this cast. He came in for the pilot and instantly changed our dynamic for the better. He's such a pro, he executes the work with such effortless precision and it's a wonder to watch him do it. He can flip in and out and he's never not having fun and that's the most contagious part of David. When our cast is on set, we're a little Instagram crazy because we are having so much fun all the time. We'll be doing an intense scene and all of the sudden, David plays a song on his phone and it's a dance party. We execute the work efficiently and we're never not having a good time. He's always reminding us that you can do good work, be a good person and have fun. David is a generous actor. He wonderfully puts you at ease and he takes liberties to make things feel natural and conversational.
Related: 'It's Both Enlightening And Frightening': David Boreanaz Talks SEAL Team
DS: Finally, what are you most proud of in your career?
TT: I have two moments. We as actors experience enormous and mass rejection, so whenever you get a call for a job, it's a euphoric experience. I keep an audition log and there's years when it has been 67 auditions and three booked. Those sort of numbers take a toll on your emotional health. You go on auto pilot and you become so used to the rejection. Getting the job is so fun. I remember booking "Barbershop." The notion of auditioning for "Barbershop" was crazy for me because I was coming from the musical theater world. Then when I booked it, I couldn't contain myself. I remember seeing a friend from my hometown that evening and thinking about how a little girl from a tiny town in Michigan was going to be on this TV show. We were euphoric. My proudest moment had to do with "SEAL Team." We went to the Upfront presentation and I hadn't seen one clip from the show yet. I saw it on the Carnegie Hall stage for the first time when they showed an extended trailer to the advertisers. I just started crying, I just couldn't contain myself. I felt pride to be part of a show like this. It looked so good, it felt so good and I was surrounded by such wonderful actors. I've been excited about projects in the past, but in this I really felt excited and proud. I told people that I wanted them to see this show because this show is really good. I'm proud to be part of this show.
"SEAL Team" airs Wednesday nights at 10pm EST/PST on CBS.


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The Hope College Wind Symphony and Orchestra will perform a joint concert on Friday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Dimnent Memorial Chapel.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The Wind Symphony will be continuing its exploration of core band repertoire on with "Band Classics II." The program will include Vaughan Williams' "Toccata Marziale," Gustav Holst's "Second Suite in F for Military Band," Ernst Toch's "Spiel for Wind Orchestra" and Alfred Reed's "Russian Christmas Music."
The Hope College Orchestra program will include works of Edouard Lalo, Anton Stepanovich Arensky and Antonin Dvorak. The orchestra will open with the Overture to "Le Roi D'ys" by Lalo. The second work on the program will feature the strings of the orchestra in "Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky" by Arensky. Closing the program will be Dvorak's "Symphony No. 9 (New World) in E minor."
Dimnent Memorial Chapel is located at the corner of 12th Street and College Avenue.


text:
We can unlock any vehicle by picking the locks, we can make new car keys and also repair damaged car keys.
Car key replaced Manchester
We can replace any lost are stolen car keys at the side of the road. You only need to make one phone call when your car keys have been lost or stolen. We will come out where your vehicle is pick and decode the lock, then make a brand-new car key for the lock and ignition, then program the car key so that it works with the cars computer and starts the engine.
We also have a 24-hour emergency unlocking service, for when your keys have been locked inside your vehicle or for when your locks have stopped working or have seized through cold weather.
When it comes to damaged or faulty car keys, we can offer a car key repair service which provides a fixed car key that will start the vehicle but sometimes these keys do not come with a full guarantee.
No matter what service you require from an auto locksmith in Manchester you can't rely on our team of experts to react fast 24 hours a day and to get you back on the road as quickly and as cost effectively as possible.
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We have a team of auto locksmiths in Manchester who will always endeavour to help you when you are stuck with either Lost keys, damaged keys, faulty keys or if you just want some advice and you are struggling to get the vehicle started and on the road.


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I am a model and an actress.
I have done many Tv commercial and print shoots .Height- 5"6 Vitals - 34-26-34 1) Shot for Femina (Magazine) for Reliance trends 2)Shot for Times of India 3) Shot for Designer Nivedita Saboo 4) Shot for Designer Manisha Khatri 5) Shot for Tips&Toes cosmetics Brand 6) Shot for freshkon contact lenses (Website) . 7)Shot for Loreal paris gloss team with Katrina kaif 8) Participated and won the Fresh face intercollegiate contest at Kshitij mithibai college fest 9)Ramp walk for Volkswagen launch party Commercials: 1) Panasonic Vierra with Ranbir Kapoor 2) Mc Donalds Commercial 3) Boro Plus commercial 4) Hypercity print 5)Boss promo shoot with Akshay Kumar 6) Askmebazaar Print shoot with Kangana Ranaut.
Height - 5"7
Location - Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
DYTF3033's Verifications
DYT Verified


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65 matches | 1-40 displayed
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Disc Jockey Djs
Disc Jockeys Prices for a Greeley Wedding DJ
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#RSL Tweets of the Day (@RealSaltLake)
Thursday's #RSL v SEA match picked up by @MLSonNBCSports with kickoff now at 8p MT @RioTintoStadium #RSLbelieve ... Gates open at 6:30p
Kick off is at 8, but be in your seats at 7:30!! PLEASE!! This is coming from Jason Kries himself. It's important.
Cool. Just found out @tylerinacoma of @neontrees is performing the national anthem at @RealSaltLake's game Thursday.
Sat down with @luisitogil21 of #RSL. Great guy, solid head on his shoulders. Def a guy all #USMNT fans should root for http://bit.ly/RH637M
(AUDIO) ESPN700: RSL head coach Jason Kreis on "The Bill and Hans Show"
(AUDIO) MLSsoccer.com: March to the Match podcast
(AUDIO) SportsTalk Florida: RSL MF Luis Gil interview
(VIDEO) RealSaltLake.com: Behind the Scenes: Western Conference Semifinal – Leg 1
(VIDEO) MLSsoccer.com: The Scouting Report: Real Salt Lake vs.Seattle
Real Salt Lake News & Notes
RealSaltLake.com: Kickoff of Thursday's RSL-Seattle Western Conference Semifinal match moved to 8 p.m. MT
RealSaltLake.com: Behind the Scenes: Western Conference Semifinals – Leg 1
MLSsoccer.com: Thursday's RSL-SEA match to start at 8 p.m. MT on NBC Sports Network
Salt Lake Tribune: Real Salt Lake-Seattle game will air live on NBCSN
Salt Lake Tribune: Real Salt Lake knows work remains against Sounders
Deseret News: Early season defensive are in the past as RSL posts four straight shutouts
Seattle Times: A stop and chat with RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey
Seattle Times: In Real Salt Lake, Sounders face MLS' model of consistency
The News Tribune: Continuity's the name of the game in the Western Conference playoffs
SportsTalk Florida: Luis Gil may be the future of US Soccer, but he is RSL's present
For the Fans, By the Fans
RSL Soapbox: Two questions ahead of second leg with Seattle
RSL Soapbox: Borchers: Seattle fans' treatment of Rimando "disgusting"
RSL Soapbox: Tony Beltran's headed clearance in 2011 against Seattle
Real Nation: Photos from Western Conference Semifinal first leg
MLS + Other News and Notes
MLSsoccer.com: Preview: New York, DC locked heading into series finale
MLSsoccer.com: Preview: Can Sporting KC overturn 2-0 aggregate deficit in leg 2 vs. Dynamo?
MLSsoccer.com: Preview: Quakes, Galaxy open latest chapter in rivalry
MLSsoccer.com: NY's Backe fears storm's impact on 2nd leg vs. DC
New York Daily News: Red Bulls could be fighting more than D.C. United in MLS playoff game as forecast calls for wet, wild weather
Washington Post: D.C. United says it can weather the MLS playoff storm vs. Red Bulls
Sporting News: Sporting Kansas City's fate rides on rejuvenated Kei Kamara
Kansas City Star: Sporting lose but focused on eve of Houston match
San Jose Mercury-News: Animosity clouds Earthquakes' rematch with Los Angeles Galaxy
LA Times: Galaxy faces simple, yet difficult, task: Beat San Jose
MLSsoccer.com: SJ's Gordon "soldiering on" despite nagging ankle knock
MLSsoccer.com: Deficit doesn't change plan for Galaxy heading to San Jose
MLSsoccer.com: Retire or re-sign? Fire, Friedrich quick to choose the latter
PortlandTimbers.com: After challenging 2012, Timbers owner Paulson confident for 2013 and beyond
Scouting Report: Seattle Sounders FC
MLSsoccer.com: Rosales progressing, uncertain to start for Seattle at RSL
MLSsoccer.com: All eyes in Seattle on Montero's postseason struggles
Seattle Times: Mauro Rosales shows progress, still unable to practice due to hamstring-related injury
The News Tribune: "Progress" for Rosales, but no certainty; potential 120-minute game affects lineup decisions


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News & Notes: Game 67
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 (7:05 p.m.) – Coca-Cola Field
TV: Time Warner Cable SportsNet HD 713
Radio: WWKB AM 1520, bisons.com
Buffalo Bisons (27-39, 5th(-14.0), North)
LHP Pat Misch (1-3, 5.89)
Columbus Clippers (43-22, 1st(+5.5), West)
LHP Scott Barnes (4-1, 4.21)
TODAY'S GAME: Tonight, the Bisons take on the Columbus Clippers in the final game of a four-game series from Coca-Cola Field (7:05 p.m.).The Bisons need a win tonight to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Clippers. Buffalo is now 1-6 on its eight-game homestand which began with a series loss to Indy. After tomorrow's off-day, the Bisons travel to Norfolk to face the Tides.
VS. THE CLIPPERS: The Bisons have lost the first three games of the season series with the Clippers. Buffalo won the season series in 2010 with six wins in eight games against Columbus. The Herd won't travel to Huntington Park until August 20 for the second half of this season series.
DISH ON MISCH: LHP PAT MISCH is coming off his best outing of the season. The southpaw allowed one run on eight hits in seven innings to Indianapolis on Thursday afternoon. Misch will be making his 20th career appearance at Coca-Cola Field tonight. He is a career 8-4 with a 3.50ERA and 81 strikeouts in 115.2 innings in downtown Buffalo.
GET FIGGY WITH IT: INF LUIS FIGUEROA enters tonight's game on a nine-game hit streak. Since June 5, the infielder has averaged an even .400 (12-30) with nine runs scored. Tonight, Figueroa can become the second Bison to reach a 10-game hit streak this season. OF KIRK NIEUWENHUIS had a 16-game stretch from April 11-26.
LUIS, LUIS: INF LUIS HERNANDEZ had a pair of hits and his sixth double of the season last night. The infielder has four multi-hit efforts in his last six games. On the season, Hernandez has 10 multi-hit games and five multi-RBI performances. He drove in five runs on Thursday against Indy.
BISONS BITS: INF MICHAEL FISHER brings an eight-game hit streak into tonight's game. The Triple-A rookie has averaged .290 (9-31) since June 6…RHP RYOTA IGARASHI has allowed just one run in his last seven appearances and 9.1 innings of work…The last time the Bisons were swept in a four-game series was June 23-27, 2010 in Toledo..OF JASON BOTTS hit his first home run as a Bison in last night's loss.
METS UPDATE: The Mets (32-34) failed to reach the .500-mark because of a 3-1 loss to the Pirates last night. New York was held to four singles with former Bisons INF DANIEL MURPHY collecting two of them. RHP MIKE PELFREY allowed just two runs in seven innings but took the loss. The Mets face the Braves tonight at 7:10pm.


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Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop Cosplay
Y'all are probably sick of seeing my femme Spike cosplay, but I'm not sick of wearing it. Any chance I get to pretend to be as cool as Spike Spiegel I'm going to take it. This cosplay was made by the very talented Stefánia Ágoston of Ticci Rockabilly. I wore this to the Fanbros: Crossplay Cosplay Contest and Party where I was one of the judges. Fanbros are the homies; I love their podcast and they are some of my favorite geek peeps. Check them out!
Neon Genesis Evangelion… Sweatshirt
I needed a day of rest from cosplaying so I wore my Neon Genesis Evangelion sweater from Apparel K on Thursday. I love how cute Sachiel looks on the sleeves of the sweater.
Sailor Goon Cosplay
For Friday, I went with a remixed version of my Sailor Goon cosplay. I traded my denim vest and shorts for a leather-ish vest and black shorts. I left the wig at home because I couldn't be bothered… but also because I'm in love with my new hair color.
Sailor Moon from Earth 23 Cosplay
The Story
I'll be honest, I had a lot of concerns about my Earth 23 Sailor Moon cosplay. Being a PoC I'm extra sensitive to appropriation. Nowadays everyone is being called out for it, both justly and unjustly. I was nervous that what I was doing could be considered the same thing. Race and culture bends in cosplay are nothing new, but I wondered if those cosplayers experienced that same trepidation.
I approached this cosplay with the utmost respect to Sailor Moon and Japanese culture; which helped subside my appropriation concerns. To me, this was more than a simple culture bend cosplay. I wanted to show the strong connection that black women have to Sailor Moon. Yes, women of all backgrounds grew up watching the Sailor Senshi. However, there's a special connection many of women of color made with the Sailor Scouts. Here was this group of strong, but also flawed, teenagers kicking ass… and they were women of color. Something we could only really find in anime. My cosplay was my way of honoring that connection and hopefully uplifting women of color as well.
The Construction
I bought the fabric from Jabbie Kunda at the International African Arts Festival in Brooklyn this summer. If you live in NYC and want to buy some beautiful African wax and kente fabrics, his permanent shop is located at the Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market (aka the African Market).
Stefánia of Ticci Rockabilly made my Kente Sailor Fuku and did an amazing job. To add a little poof I wore my petticoat from Bodyline and my friend Shanté made my beautiful ankh headpiece.
The Compliments
The compliments were overwhelming. Instead of a magical girl transformation, I turned into a shy shoujo character like Rinko Yamato or Sawako Kuronuma. I felt not only extremely adorable, but strong as well. I believe people got the message I was trying to convey and I'm happy about that.
I met Amandla Stenberg (Hunger Games) and she loved my cosplay so much that she posted a photo on her Instagram! She was at NYCC to promote the comic she's writing, Niobe: She Is Life, along with the artist Ashley Woods. The comic comes out November 4th. Preorder it now at your local comic book shop!
Steven Universe Cosplay
I wanted to do a Steven Universe cosplay but since I waited last-minute I ended up with just the shirt, gem and cheeseburger clutch (instead of a backpack). Still cute, though!


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Earl's nervous about returning a laptop computer he stole from a college professor, mostly because he's uncomfortable around smart people. When the professor turns out to be a beautiful woman, he feels even more ill at ease, until she flatters him and asks him to speak about his list in front of her class. Meanwhile, Randy experiences fraternity life—and absolutely loves it.
Image source: themoviedb.org


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Life is full of unexpected circumstances, we often get mad and frustrated when things are not happening the way we want it to be; guess people really cant be satisfied. Every day we go through different phases in our life but at the end of the day do we get satisfied? I don't wanna be a hypocrite but there are times that I don't, yet at the end of the day the most compelling things I realized is that I get to satisfy my inner thoughts and learned lessons that I get to used in my lifetime. Like I learned that we should never make decisions nor utter ill unkindly words when we are mad. Because at the end of the day those unkind words can never be taken back and we only get to understand it when we already see that we already hurt the people we love. It may only be words but I believed it is the most lethal weapon that could make or break one's soul. And making decision out of madness and frustration is never a good decision. Why? 'coz we tend to lost our sense of sensibility and focus. Instead of trying to go through the details of the situation and taking time to analyze everything we get to rush and submerged to the circus of emotions. Thus, decision making is haphazardly done and results are more complicated.
Another thing I realized that to be able to have a harmonious living with one another, we should try to be more understanding in all aspects of life. It is not a lost if one would humbles themselves above others for everyone's peace and unity. Rather than be succumb in pride and selfishness, why not give way, forgive and forget?! I would rather have integrity than to show off and just because we need to fit in with everyone else way of life. No one's perfect but in imperfection we learn and as we learn we get better.
So, guess what I am saying why argue, gossip and insult when you could talk, forgive, forget and move on. With this: life is better, life is beautiful and every one is at peace.


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James Carroll, CPA L.L.C.
James Carroll, CPAMember109 Church RoadOwings Mills, MD firstname.lastname@example.com@jamescarroll-cpa.com
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December of last year, fundamentally changes the federal tax landscape for both individuals and businesses. Many of the provisions in the legislation are permanent, others (including most of the tax cuts that apply to individuals) expire at the end of 2025. Here are some of the significant changes you should factor in to any mid-year tax planning. You should also consider reviewing your situation with a tax professional.
In 2018, there remain seven marginal income tax brackets, but most of the rates have dropped from last year. The new rates are 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. Most, but not all, will benefit to some degree from the lower rates. For example, all other things being equal, those filing as single with taxable incomes between approximately $157,000 and $400,000 may actually end up paying tax at a higher top marginal rate than they would have last year. Consider how the new rates will affect you based on your filing status and estimated taxable income.
Standard deduction amounts are nearly double what they were last year, but personal exemptions (the amount, $4,050 in 2017, that you could deduct for yourself, and potentially your spouse and your dependents) are no longer available. Additional standard deduction amounts allowed for the elderly and the blind remain available for those who qualify. If you're single or married without children, the increase in the standard deduction more than makes up for the loss of personal exemption deductions. If you're a family of four or more, though, the math doesn't work out in your favor.
The overall limit on itemized deductions that applied to higher-income taxpayers is repealed, the income threshold for deducting medical expenses is reduced for 2018, and the income limitations on charitable deductions are eased. That's the good news. The bad news is that the deduction for personal casualty and theft losses is eliminated, except for casualty losses suffered in a federal disaster area, and miscellaneous itemized deductions that would be subject to the 2% AGI threshold, including tax-preparation expenses and unreimbursed employee business expenses, are no longer deductible. Other deductions affected include:
Prepared by Broadridge Advisor Solutions Copyright 2020.


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Do you know who Rob Parker is? You probably don't because there's really nothing special about Rob Parker. He currently exists as a member of ESPN's stable of chuckleheads who are periodically rotated into duty on First Take, where their main job is to sit there and let Skip Bayless do his thing.
Well, today Rob Parker decided that he wasn't going to go unnoticed any longer. So he did what any attention-seeking, B-list sports pundit would do: He trolled intelligent baseball fans.
Things got started a few hours ago when Parker tweeted the following:
That's some quality trolling. See, he goes right for the "people who like stats are nerds who use calculators because they're so nerdy, hahaha!" angle, and he even takes aim at fellow ESPNer Keith Law, which is of course extra-controversial.
The angry replies started to trickle in, just as Parker had planned, so he went ahead and threw more stupid gas on the stupid fire:
Not only does Rob Parker watch movies 20 times over, he apparently expects them to end differently each time. Do not ever go to movie night at Rob Parker's house.
Just about every baseball writer and fan on Twitter with a functioning brain stem took offense to Parker's idiocy, and they are currently berating him. A sampling:
Allow us to chime in: Hey Rob Parker, remember when you got caught making stuff up? Lol.
UPDATE: We've been told that Parker and Law appeared on the 4:00 SportsCenter to debate who should be the AL MVP. Law chose Mike Trout, and Parker chose Miguel Cabrera. Parker's trolling stemmed from that segment.


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I am going to set this tree up for Halloween. I already have purchased ornaments and garland. It is soooo adorable! I am really looking forward to the holiday season. Very easy set up and take down. The shimmer in the tree is beyond "Magical!"
—Sasha from San Francisco, CA
Squeeze some fun into your holiday décor with Treetopia's 100% Orange Christmas Tree. This designer Christmas tree features vibrant orange tips that pack a holiday decorating punch.
This orange artificial Christmas tree has sturdy, fully hinged branches that can accommodate ornaments of any size. Its glowing warm color lends itself to a variety of decorating styles, whether you decide to dress it up in the burnished tones of fall or the bright colors of the rainbow. Perfect for Halloween and Thanksgiving in addition to Christmas, our 100% Orange Christmas Tree adds a burst of sun-kissed freshness to your holiday décor.
Fully hinged branches cut set up time and effort, so you can focus on getting your other decorations just right.
Whether pre-lit with clear lights or unlit, the 100% Orange Christmas Tree will brighten up your holidays.
We pride ourselves in providing an exceptional, enduring product. For more warranty information, please visit our WARRANTY FAQS »
What's included in the box:
Unless marked otherwise, all items are in stock and ready to ship. Orders received on business days by 7 am Pacific Standard Time (10 am EST) will ship the same day. We offer three domestic shipping options through Fedex to meet your needs. For more shipping information, including information about shipping to Hawaii, Alaska, and Canada, please visit our Shipping Information »
will arrive to almost all populated regions of the continental USA in four to six total days
will arrive in three total business days
will arrive in two total business days
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The first time you assemble and shape your tree will require the most shaping to give the tree its full lush appearance.
To ensure an easy setup every holiday season, follow these simple steps to storing your tree safely in the off season.
Get fast answers from the Treetopia community


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May contain in-game purchases
Conan Exiles
Funcom Oslo A/S
Full Game
Conan Exiles is an online multiplayer survival game, now with mounts and mounted combat, set in the lands of Conan the Barbarian. Survive in a savage world, build your kingdom, and dominate your enemies in brutal combat and epic warfare.
Start with nothing but your bare hands and forge the legacy of your clan, building anything a small home to gigantic fortresses and entire cities. Wage war using swords, bows, siege weapons, and even take control of giant avatars of the gods and lay waste to enemy cities.
Explore a vast, seamless world full of challenge and opportunity. Hunt animals for resources, slay monsters for treasure, and delve deep underground to discover the secrets of ancient civilizations.
Conan Exiles can be experienced in both local single-player and in persistent online multiplayer.
Remote Play requires PS Vita system and sufficiently robust Wi-Fi connection.
Online features require an account and are subject to terms of service (playstationnetwork.com/terms-of-service), privacy policy (playstationnetwork.com/privacy-policy), and the game publisher's privacy policy.
1 player
Network Players 2-40 - Full game requires PlayStation®Plus membership to access online multiplayer
63GB minimum save size
Remote Play
Online Play (Optional)
Software subject to license (us.playstation.com/softwarelicense). Online features require an account and are subject to terms of service and applicable privacy policy (playstationnetwork.com/terms-of-service & playstationnetwork.com/privacy-policy). One-time license fee for play on account's designated primary PS4™ system and other PS4™ systems when signed in with that account.
© 2020 Funcom Oslo A/S ("Funcom"). All rights reserved. © 2020 Conan Properties International LLC ('CPI'). CONAN, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, HYBORIA, and/or ROBERT E. HOWARD and related logos, characters, names, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of CPI and/or Robert E. Howard LLC. All Rights Reserved. Funcom and Funcom Logo ™ & © Funcom Oslo A/S.


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Jeopardy (Playstation 2) (Pre-Played - CIB - Good)
$ 3.99
Based on the TV game show, Jeopardy! 2003 is a fast-paced competition that allows you to build up incredible winnings. The host Alex Trebek delivers the answers and you deliver the questions--but remember to buzz in first. Tackle 5,200 challenging answers in classic, solo, or Tournament of Champions modes. You can also challenge two other players and track each player's performance. Once you've conquered the game, take a sample contestant exam and see if you have what it takes to go on the real show.


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I'm getting in touch with you on behalf of Our Land, a Government-funded programme to increase sustainable tourism in our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, to benefit local businesses, communities and the landscapes.
We recently launched a new campaign called 'Love Our Land', which will invite people to tell us what they love about our Protected Landscapes to develop the first ever Landscape Character Assessment of the area.
Our first theme is 'coast' and we're offering those who take part in our Facebook poll the chance to win a week's beach holiday on the Isle of Wight including ferry crossing.
I wanted to put this on your radar in case this prize might appeal to your members/readers? I also wanted to invite them to get involved in this unique 'cultural mapping' project by uploading what it is they love about the British coast in words, pictures or film on the Our Land Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ourlanduk) or on Twitter using #loveourland (@OurLandUK)
We really need your help to find out what it is that Brits love about the coast and I thought that your online community might be a good place to start!
It'd be great if you could share this with your readers/members on your website (perhaps in news or in the bulletin boards section/via a newsletter. Do let me know if you need more information or some pictures!
twitter @ourlanduk
follow us on facebook at ourlanduk
Our Land - COAST - win a week on the Isle of Wight
Press releases approved by the editorial team will be posted here. Submissions should be sent to Nick or Silkie.
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CONCORD — State prosecutors have scheduled a Tuesday afternoon press conference to discuss the pending investigation into a fatal shootout between police and a suspected drug dealer in Greenland last month.
CONCORD — State prosecutors have scheduled a Tuesday afternoon press conference to discuss the pending investigation into a fatal shootout between police and a suspected drug dealer in Greenland last month.
The press conference will take place at 2:30 p.m. at the Attorney General's office on Capitol Street in Concord, according to a message released by Attorney General Michael Delaney Tuesday morning.
"The purpose of the conference is to discuss the review that will be undertaken of the Greenland shooting that claimed the life of Chief Michael Maloney and wounded four Drug Task Force officers," the message states.
A representative of the Attorney General's office could not immediately be reached for further information Tuesday morning.
Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney was killed and four officers were wounded in the April 12 drug search at 517 Post Road in Greenland.
Prosecutors have said one of the two targets of the search, 29-year-old Cullen Mutrie, allegedly opened fire on members of the Attorney General's Drug Task Force when they tried to enter his home.
Task force members were attempting to execute two warrants: one to search the property and another to arrest Mutrie's one-time companion, Brittany Tibbetts.
Mutrie and Tibbetts were at the center of a drug investigation, and police were searching for evidence of cocaine and the prescription painkiller oxycodone at Mutrie's residence, according to court documents.
Members of the Attorney General's Drug Task Force were carrying a so-called "no-knock" search warrant when they arrived. The warrant authorized police to enter Mutrie's home at any time, night or day, without knocking on the door or announcing their presence.
Mutrie barricaded himself inside the home with Tibbetts after the shooting broke out. A tense standoff ensued, and police used a robot to enter the home. They found the bodies of Mutrie and Tibbetts in the basement.
The chief medical examiner has ruled their deaths a murder-suicide, indicating that Mutrie killed himself and Tibbetts, a 26-year-old Berwick, Maine, resident, was murdered.


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So shortly after buying the legendary King dragon and using up 100 relics which lets not forget costs 1000 gems to activate I find that you can get a token for him by simply defeating him in the campaign!
Really if something costs this much yet is available later on in game for nothing there should be a warning attached to it. By the time you have the hundred relics needed to activate him you are nearly at him.
Btw it is possible that the late game balance is a little off as whilst at the start you might struggle on a level later on it is just a case of leaving your heroes to it and tapping on the chests when they are done.


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Festoon bulbs are often used in rear lights, indicators, handlebar indicators and in speedo lighting.
Here applies:
- speedo lighting 0,6-3W
- rear light 5W
- brake light 10W
- handlebar indicator 15-18W
A visual highlight is the LED festoon bulb in a practical set of two. This can be used instead of the normal festoon bulbs.
The description SV describes the design of the festoon bulb and the number the diameter of the socket in mm.


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I would like to ask for I paper I definitely need for writing my thesis.
However, when I try to post my request in the "paper request" category, the "start new topic" button is replaced by "you cannot start a new topic"
Does anybody know why is that?
I will appreciate your answer!
Thank you very much!
Edited by Olgitsa, 08 February 2013 - 10:49 AM.


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A Dangerous Afternoon in the Rain on the Beach
Last Saturday morning at 10, I attended the Paws Across the Hamptons Event at Southampton High School, with 150 walkers and 200 dogs trotting down Narrow Lane to Wickapogue and beyond. I took a lot of video for our website for this event ("Walk the Walk, Bark the Bark"), and as we trotted purposefully along I narrated the event into my iPhone microphone, explaining that we were heading off to set a Guinness Book of World Records—around-the-world tour—to New York, Paris, Moscow and beyond. I was pretty proud of my narrative.
It had been sunny for this event, but afterward it began to cloud over. Showers were predicted for late in the day, but that was all right because I expected to be inside an old barn at Mulford Farm in East Hampton at 2 p.m. for a reading of a screenplay called "Nazis in the Hamptons." In the meantime, I had three hours to kill. [expand]
I drove three miles out Meadow Lane to a spot I know almost at the end of that peninsula, where a sand road leads you out onto the beach. I often drive out onto the beach in my Tahoe for peace and quiet and to sit on a folding chair near the ocean and write stories for this paper on my laptop. Driving along, I marveled at some of the beautiful oceanfront mansions. Ordinarily, when I take the Tahoe out onto the beach, I check the tide table app on my cellphone to see if the tide is coming in—something you don't want to get caught in—but I did not do that here. These mansions on Meadow look out across a broad ocean beach that is more than 100 yards wide.
I turned left onto Road G, which soon turns into the sand road, and I headed out. The sand was pretty soft. I shifted down into 4-wheel and headed right toward the Shinnecock Inlet. On the way, I waved to a fisherman by a yellow pickup and he waved back. There were fishing rods on his roof. There were fishing rods on my Tahoe. Mine are for show. I hate fishing.
You move slow in a 4-wheel on the beach. I called my wife to check in. She was busy with other stuff, particularly with shopping for a brunch we would be holding on Sunday at the house. After a while, we concluded it would be best if we took two cars to Mulford Farm and met up there.
I bumped along, making a big detour around about 200 seagulls standing in a big flock near the water looking out to sea at what seemed to me was absolutely nothing. Beyond them, in an isolated spot—I like to work alone—I turned the Tahoe to face the ocean and came to a halt. Then I got out of the car and looked around.
It was warm, but it was breezy. Also it had begun clouding over. I lugged a folding chair out of the back of the truck and with that and my computer bag strolled down toward the water, until I got to a sand cliff about two feet high made by the last high tide. Occasional waves slid up the beach to it, then fell back. If I set up my chair about five feet behind it, I'd see the sand start to slide down if there were a problem with the surf. I'd be writing there an hour and a half. It could happen.
But after just ten minutes there, I noticed another problem. The wind was picking up—an odd wind, east to west against the prevailings—and it was blowing the sand around my keyboard. It would be very stupid to continue to work here. So I took everything back to the car and now set up to write in the passenger's seat with the window open. Almost like being out on the sand. Almost. I typed.
An hour and a half later, I finished up. It was a story about this Icelandic comedian who, as a lark, had run for mayor of the capital city Reykjavik.
"We formed our own party," he told a crowd. "It's the Best Party. If it wasn't the Best Party it would be the Worst Party or the Bad Party. But it isn't. You have nothing to fear with the Best Party."
Early polls had him with 2% of the vote. But the crowds loved him. He won.
The cellphone rang. I had forgotten to turn off the ringer. It was Richard Lewin, a photographer for the newspaper. "Hadn't spoken to you in quite some time," he said. "Just wanted to chat."
A sprinkle of rain was now tapping onto the windshield. Really glad now I was back in the car. I turned on the wipers. And I turned on the engine. I'd finished writing. It was time now to go.
Richard told me about a store in Montauk that is for sale. We talked about a concert at the Lighthouse. As we did, I slid the Tahoe into gear and slowly moved forward down toward the ocean. My intention was to turn left just before I got to the sand cliff and continue on parallel to the ocean toward home. I made the turn. And as I did, the car sank down and stopped. It was stuck in the sand. Richard was pattering along about something.
"Oh s–t," I said.
"Gotta go," I said. "Call you back later."
"Something's come up."
The Tahoe was completely stuck. I have had this happen before. I'm a master at getting out of sand. I've been beach driving for 25 years. When stuck, you just rock it a bit forward, then back, then forward, then back, and it works its way out. I did that. It got me in deeper.
I sighed. I got out of the truck. The wheels were about halfway down. So I went to Plan B, which I sometimes have to do, which consists of taking out a shovel and digging the sand out from around the wheels.
Other than that one time at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett 20 years ago, I've never been stuck. I know all about how to do this.
The rain was coming down hard now. I dug and dug, was satisfied with the work after awhile, and then got into the car and began rocking it back and forth again. But then I knew this was for real. The engine was racing, and the wheels were spinning. It was sinking deeper. I looked out the car window to the running board. The running board was level with the sand. That meant the underside of the Tahoe was flat on the sand and the wheels were hopeless. My heart sank. There'd be no way of digging myself out of this.
Now I looked at the tide table. The tide would be high in two hours. Between now and then, the tide would continue to come in. Why the hell hadn't I looked at the tide table?
I have, over the years, been to places where cars and trucks have been overwhelmed by the sea for one reason or another. It's not pretty. I once saw a Dodge Ram bobbing along in the surf in Napeague. I took its picture. Boy, I thought, the owner of that Dodge must have been pretty stupid. This would never happen to me.
Who do I call? I had no idea. I was beginning to panic. I called the Southampton Village Police. They put me on hold. I didn't want them to do that. But they did.
How long did I have? I looked out the passenger window. I was 10 feet from the sand cliff. And now I saw the sea was lapping at it, angrily, in the heavy wind and pouring rain.
"I have some names for you," the police dispatcher said when she got back. "People with tow trucks who will get you out."
"There's not enough TIME!" I shouted.
"Just stay calm, sir."
One was in Water Mill, the other in Hampton Bays. A machine answered at Water Mill and told me to call a pager number and leave my number, which I did. But they could be hours getting back to me. I called Hampton Bays. And they answered.
"Hello?" a woman said.
Out the window, I saw something very alarming. Just 20 feet in front of me, a wave had climbed up and over the sand wall and slid up the beach. Had I been 20 feet further along, that wave would have hit the side of my car.
"This is an emergency," I said. "I'm on the beach and the tide is coming in. I'm down by the water's edge. Help me."
"Where are you sir?"
I told her. "How soon can you get somebody here?" I croaked.
"We have all the trucks out. I'll make some calls. I'll call you right back."
"Have one of the trucks stop what they are doing and come here. Emergency. Emergency."
"Just hang on, sir. I'll call you right back." And she was gone.
So this is how this happens, I thought. You take your mind off things. I was just making that turn, and then I had Richard on the phone. I got distracted. I wasn't paying attention.
Then I thought, well, I'll stay in the car as long as I can. I looked around. What did I not want to lose? I'll take the laptop of course. As for the rest—it was surprising how much crap there was in the car and how little of it mattered to me—I didn't care two cents.
Of course, there was the car. I'd paid $51,000 for it in 2008. The water would soon begin to come in. Saltwater. The car would start rocking from side to side. Oh my God.
The phone rang again. She had found someone. "He'll be there in 20 minutes," she said.
Another wave broke over the sand wall. It slid to within five feet of the car.
"No. Now. Right away."
"He's on his way. As we speak."
"I haven't got much time," I shouted. My voice had gone high and squeaky.
"Just stay calm, sir."
I need something else to do, I thought. To distract myself. I know, I'll stick my AT&T thumb drive antenna into the laptop, get an internet signal and send my story into the office. So I did that. It took five minutes. Now what? Another wave had breached the sand wall. I called the tow service back.
"It's me," I said.
"They're on the way sir. I told you."
"It's been 10 minutes."
"I told you 20."
And she hung up on me.
I thought—does my insurance cover this? I can't imagine that it does. But maybe it does.
Ten more minutes went by. No truck. Then, at the 25-minute mark, there appeared at the back of the beach a pickup truck coming down from the sand road toward me. But halfway to me, it stopped. A door opened. A dog jumped out into the rain. Then, two men with cups of coffee and a 10 year old. This was not the tow company.
Nevertheless, I got out of my car and headed toward them waving my arms. And one of them, a man in a Yankee baseball cap, headed over toward me.
"I need HELP," I said. He looked beyond me at my car. It was quite a sight.
We walked together back to it, leaving the others near his pickup.
"Hmmm," he said. "You need a tow truck."
"They'll help you out."
The man had a heavy accent.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Meadow Lane," he said.
"No, before that."
"Israel," he said. "Say, this is nothing. They'll get you out. I'm sure they're on the way."
Uh oh, I thought. My cellphone was in the ashtray. I had forgotten to take it with me.
"Uh, I have to get back in there," I said. "Excuse me." And I ran off.
"Anything we can do let me know," the man from Israel shouted after me.
I climbed back into the car out of breath. There had been no call. I looked at my watch. It was 1:35 p.m. I called my wife.
"I'm not going to be able to make 'Nazis in the Hamptons,'" I said. I told her what had happened. I told her I had called the tow truck. I told her Israelis were here. I told her the car was going to get taken off by the sea.
"Just think of something else," my wife said. "Just calm down. It's only a car. That's all it is."
"Okay," I said.
The sea was breaking down the sand wall now. The Israelis were gone. There were now hailstones. And so, I just closed my eyes and decided to wait until the car began rocking.
I was startled awake. There was a florid looking man with a Mets baseball cap at my window. What is this with the baseball caps? Beyond this man were flashing lights. Thank God, I thought.
"Start up your car, and put it in neutral," he said. "Then just look out at me and when I give you the signal, drop it into forward gear."
He held up a heavy wire he had brought over from a winch on the front of his truck. There was a hook on the end. He wiped some hair off his forehead from below his cap. "Really lousy weather." He found something to hook onto below my grill. Then he was gone, walking briskly back toward his tow truck.
Through the rainstorm about 100 yards beyond the tow truck, I saw a man standing in front of a black jeep waving his arms windmill fashion at the flashing lights. The guy in the Mets cap glanced up toward him. And then another wave came over the cliff and came right up to the Tahoe, where it stopped—with a foot to go.
Me first, I thought, then do him.
An hour later, I was home in my living room in front of the fire, just waking up from an hour's sleep on the sofa. I thought about the day, and the extraordinary scrape I had just been in and I wondered if I had learned anything.
Couldn't think of a thing.
That night, my wife brought me the program for "Nazis in the Hamptons." And I played for her the video from the Dog Walk. You could barely hear any sound. I had not talked into the microphone properly. All my witty commentary had been for nothing.
And so, to bed. [/expand]


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Continua la navigazione Go to checkout!
Altramoda delivers to all EU countries (excluding the minor islands) via DPD (Dynamic Parcel Distribution) parcel delivery service. The goods travel at the risk of the recipient. We always do our best for packaging the products in a safe manner. Once the parcel has been shipped, you will receive notification of the track and trace number of your order; you can check the status of your order online. Please give us a PHONE NUMBER YOU CAN BE REACHED AT; we'll call you only in case any problem occurs during the shipping procedure.
Two free delivery attempts are foreseen for each shipment. Deliveries are from Monday to Friday (excluding national holidays). If no-one is present at the time of the attempt delivery, the driver will leave a notification card in your mailbox (which contain the following information: date and time of attempted delivery, address and telephone number of the post office at which the ship is lying, and the deadline of stock). If the second delivery attempt fails, too, the parcel can be picked up at your local office of DPD.
You can not change address after the package has already been shipped. After two delivery attempts, parcels awaiting delivery are kept in stock at DPD local office on average for 7 days, including Saturdays and holidays. After the period of storage, the package will return to Italy. THEN we will proceed to reimburse you ONLY COST OF GOODS, DEDUCTING THE COST OF THE SHIPPING BY AMOUNT PAID BY YOU AND DEDUCTING the cost FOR RETURN OF THE PARCEL.
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For countries outside the EC (Norway, Switzerland,...) the custom may ask you a clearance fee in proportion to the total of the invoice. Find out from the Bureau of Customs of your country.
The GOTS certified, high quality memo dish clothes are made from 100% certified organic Fairtrade cotton. The solid woven dish clothes are ideal for effectively drying dishes by hand. With the attractive color coordinated designs, they fit perfectly into the kitchen. With a firmly sewn, robust hanger.
Size: 50 x 70 cm - Pack of 2 pieces
Colour: grey/white
Made in Asia.
Machine wash max 60°C
Organic cotton
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Last updated: 25 May 2018
Indice di gradimento: 9.7
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